Thinking Out Loud

Please welcome aboard Alan Cassell, one of my kid brothers, he will be contributing to the blog from time to time.

I believe he wants to “Think Out Loud” about mostly political topics and issues, but I am sure his thoughts will go beyond that.

Many of his views along that line will not match up with my own, albeit I haven’t spent much time commenting on politics. He and I have slugged it out in Email, so don’t be surprised if he and I do the point and counter-point thing in here..

Reason why I haven’t committed the time to politics is because all the idiocracy has been replayed in the media and with the current administration in lame duck mode, there is no point. Replaying the blame game is not productive when it comes to the topics being worn down like a pencil lead.

Of course with the upcoming elections with interesting but less than stellar candidates, we shall see.

If one must know, I am somewhere right of center and he is somewhere else, as far as political belief goes, so I might be referred to as a less educated Republican or a Blind Patriot, but it all comes out in the wash, he and I are brothers and different ideologies cannot change that..

Alan, I love you man!!

Welcome Aboard Bro!

Does US economic policy spit in the face of conventional economic practice and wisdom?  Is the mighty US immune to severe fundamental market pressures?  How would a severe economic crisis bode for our national security?  How low will our currency go?

To entertain these interesting questions read on…

I enjoyed this years Super Bowl, it was one in which the team the talking heads said was supposed to win, actually lost.

Thats right, the 18–0 New England Patriots lost to underdog New York Giants by a score of 17–14!

The irony is sweeter, the Patriots lost a Super Bowl by the same point margin that marked their prior 3 victories, yes by 3 points.

This Super Bowl wasn’t marked by tremendous point production, but rather defensive struggles.

The Patriots season should not be dismissed, its hard to have played 16 regular season games, and harder to have played 2 playoff games without a single loss, but in the end, all that is technically moot if you cant get the one lone victory that matters.

The talent of the Patriots team and coaches should not go un-noticed, perfect team cohesion and consistent focus are hard goals to reach, this years Patriots team achieved that. I believe they had this, but I also believed they took it too far.

After the spygate scandal that plagued them early in the season in which they were caught spying on the New York Jets, a stupid act because they handily defeated them anyway, I believe the team felt they had something to prove. So they were going to prove to the world that they couldn’t be stopped by defeating opponents handily one week at a time.

As the season went on, I do believe this bold determination to silence their critics, led the team to believe they were unstoppable, invincible. When you believe what your ego tells you, it is called arrogance. They nearly got tripped up by lesser teams in the regular season, almost losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens.

But in the Super Bowl, who were they playing, oh its only the New York Giants, heck we beat them once already, piece of cake..

This is why the Patriots lost the Super Bowl, they believed their own egos by thinking that they are supposed to win, therefore they will.

On the other hand, The New York Giants faced much more adversity than the Patriots. Over the course of a season, its easier to overcome adversity like the Giants did, as opposed to the Patriots not having had to face it, then encounter it and not know what to do.

I am not without bias, I got tired of AFC teams winning the Super Bowl and got tired of it being the Patriots.

Congratulations New York Giants!

Thinking myself as computer savvy, I always thought that any Virus/spyware risk I could face is minimal, I keep my system up to date and don’t click on everything I see in sight. I decided though to make sure I was safe, so I sought a anti-spyware program that had got or is getting great reviews.

I found a program called Spyware Doctor by a company called PCTOOLS. I downloaded it and paid the one year subscription fee of $29.95 for a single computer license.

Sure enough it found that I had some infections, it cleansed them and has been diligently keeping my system clean ever since. The only complaint I have with it is that computer processor usage spikes whenever I have a browser window open.

When browsing a local store that carries software products, I saw a retail boxed version of the same product, same price but it said it was licensed for 3 computers.

I e mailed Pctools customer service and asked about it, the first response from them was that it was a special deal made with retailers. I was a little dumbfounded that they could charge the same price on their web site for only one computer and then get same fee in the stores that is licensed for 3 computers. I pointed out that the downloaded version did not involve burning the product onto a CD/DVD, packaging it and then shipping it.

I was very pleased to learn that PCTOOLS customer service changed my license to match the retail version..

BRAVO PCTOOLS!

In an earlier blog post, I talked about the topic of telephone worship and cited a news story about several girls whom perished in a car crash because the driver was apparently using her cell phone to send a text message. <sigh>

Telephone worshipping will always be a sore spot with me, because it seems people have some sort of ritualistic or spiritual reliance on the damn telephone.

In comes GPS devices, mark my words this will be the next item that is used in a automobile that will be a factor in car crashes!

Its bad enough that many bring into their car stuff that can distract them:

• Newspapers, they try to read and drive!
• Food and drink, nothing like a little breakfast while you drive to work, then spill your coffee!
• Makeup, yes we all have seen people preening themselves and applying blush and mascara!
• Not dressed fully, sure, change pants and shirt while driving!

Its already feasible that merely talking with a passenger in your vehicle, in a engrossing conversation can distract a driver from concentrating on the road around them.

Cell phones, hands free or not compound the distraction factor.

In come GPS, those handy little devices that mount on the windshield of a car and help those unfamiliar with a place, navigate their way to a destination, they even talk to you.

The fact that they talk to you is supposed to prevent the driver from having to stare at the device, therefore reduce the risk of distracting them from their driving. But here is the thing, the driver will more than likely have their radio turned up too loud or be super-mouthing on their cell phone and not hear the voice alerts, then end up staring at the device and getting in a wreck!

Mark my words, there will be car crashes with GPS devices being a factor..

“Officer, I didn’t see the light turn red, I was looking at my Tom Tom!”

I have for the past several years been involved with owning a handful of domain names, my very first domain name was with Network Solutions. Pricey Registrar Fee’s. I wised up and switched over to Dotster, much cheaper, around $15/yr.

I then stumbled across Godaddy, for their prices and other services, they cannot be beat.

From time to time, I get solicitations from other registrars, whom presumably found me through the whois database, whom offer to renew a doain I might have that is 4 to 6 months within expiring, and they want me to pay 3 times what Godaddy charges..

What are these people smoking???????

Liberty Names and Domain Names Of America, why would I pay you 3 times more for a service I can get for $10/yr?

Why not buckle that belt of yours an extra notch and price yourselves to compete!

I watched a program on ESPN tonight, it was a town hall style meeting called The Vick Divide and yes it dealt with the Michael Vick story.

Michael Vick is the soon to be was, NFL Atlanta Falcons quarterback, whom got himself in trouble with the law over dog fighting charges, in a nutshell he has pled guilty to a number of federal charges, recently indicted by the state of Virginia, is suspended indefinitely from the NFL.

ESPN had a panel of 5 people, Two were former NFL players from the Atlanta Falcons, two were journalists from major newspapers and one was a nationally syndicated talk show host based out of Atlanta. The audience contained a potpourri of personalities whom had input into the meeting on both sides of the issue, humane society, NAACP, other radio talk show personalities etc. The audience was full of mostly black people whom appeared to be Michael Vick supporters.

Since I am not black, I cannot purport to know what it is like to be black in a color-aware society, nor can I attest to what has become known as the black experience.

I am commenting in this blog post mostly from what I observed from the behavior of the audience.

Let me establish a fact here, Michael Vick confessed to a number of crimes in a plea bargain agreement, he faces sentencing in December. Key word is “CONFESSED”.

As questions were asked of the panelists or input given by the other talking heads, if what was said wasnt remotely pro-Vick, boos and catcalls would erupt from the audience.

When the audience was asked to show via applause if they felt dog fighting should or should not be illegal, most of them said it should not be illegal.

The man confessed yet these idiots dont get it, its because he is black that he has to be innocent, I would hate to see what it takes for them to think someone really could be guilty of something? Wait, what if Vick was White and confessed, he’d be guilty alright!

We saw this sentiment with OJ Simpson, only difference I might see is at least Simpson fought the criminal charges and won. But I am convinced that had he confessed, the black community would think otherwise.

I realize that this country has a blighted history on how it has treated minorities, especially blacks, alot of injustice has occurred, some to this day.

I refuse to believe that every black person brought up on a criminal charge is only targetted because of race, it’s time to forgo the race card.

Well, well, well,

NFL Atlanta Falcon Quarterback Michael Vick has agreed to cop a guilty plea on 08/27/2007 to those dog fighting charges.

His troubles might not be over, all this deals with Federal Charges, he might feel the bite of the state of Virginia and possibly other states.

Michael has had a bad year, flipping the bird to fans of The Falcons at a home game last year, getting caught with a water bottle, that had a secret compartment with a unusual odor at a airport, now the dog fighting issue!

I understand that Michael came from humble beginnings, using his athleticism to propel him out of mediocrity to fame and fortune, instead of counting his blessings, he let his fame finance the crap that was around from his humble beginnings.. I guess in his case it proves the cliche that you can take the boy out of the hood, but you cant take the hood out of the boy. It also seems trouble making runs in the family, younger brother Marcus got kicked off of the Va Tech team and didn’t fair so well in the NFL.

Money can buy most anything, look what Vicks money bought him!